FIH | CH 03

Chapter 3

Marlin called her name with a surprised and joyful face.

Haela slowly sat up and leaned against the headboard of the bed.

“Are you feeling okay?”

Her head felt like it was splitting apart.

Haela turned her head to look at Marlin.

The surroundings were dark, but she could recognize the face relying on the moonlight and the candlelight from the stand.

“Marlin?”

“Yes. It’s me. I’ll call the doctor right now, so please wait just a moment,” Marlin said with a touched face, preparing to stand up.

Haela grabbed her wrist and asked, “Kersian? Where is Kersian?”

The room was quiet, and no one was visible except for her nanny, who had been unjustly killed several years ago.

But it felt like Kersian might open the closed door and walk in at any second.

Even through the severe headache, the thought of facing him felt so terrifying and horrible that her heart pounded wildly.

My heart is beating…? Why am I alive?

Or is this just a nightmare I’m having before I face death?

But for it to be a dream, she could too vividly feel her heart beating and the blood circulating through her body.

And above all, the nanny who was frowning at her looked too “real.”

Not knowing these thoughts, Marlin’s heart ached seeing Haela search for him the moment she opened her eyes.

“His Grace came by during the day. He was worried and asked how you were doing.”

Haela did not respond to those words.

Because her head was lowered, her expression could not be seen.

“If you want to see him, shall I bring him now?”

“There is no need for 그럴 필요 없어.”

Haela’s voice was trembling. With a pitter-patter sound, water droplets fell onto the sheets of the blanket.

Marlin did not know how to comfort her.

“What on earth happened?” Haela asked.

She simply couldn’t understand.

Is it possible I’m not dead but have gone mad and am seeing illusions?

It made no sense for a dead person to be right in front of her.

Besides, wasn’t it too horrible that even in death, she couldn’t escape Kersian or Uriel?

Maybe she had gone crazy from the suffering and was trapped in her most terrible time?

Otherwise, how could it be that after falling to her death with her body shattered, the first sight she saw upon opening her eyes was her wedding day?

“Ha…”

Haela gave a quiet, hollow laugh.

Indeed, no matter which way she thought about it, it didn’t make sense.

“The doctor said it seems to be due to shock. There is nothing specifically wrong with your body. He definitely said that, but you didn’t wake up for over two days.”

Haela remained silent with her head down.

A scream rose inside her, and an impulse to break everything in sight flared up.

She wanted to smash every object in the room and jump once more before Kersian appeared.

So that this time, she could die more surely.

However, seeing Marlin’s eyes, which were already red as if she had cried a lot, she couldn’t do anything.

Marlin was the type who would be more pained and worried if Haela even got a tiny scratch.

She had followed Haela here, suffered, and thought only of her until the moment she died. Haela couldn’t bring herself to do that in front of her.

All that remained was resignation.

“You don’t know how worried everyone was.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes. Me, Sir Heinrich, His Grace, and the others too.”

“There’s no need to lie.”

Haela’s voice was very cold.

Beyond resignation, there was even a sense of anger.

Marlin bit her lip.

Suddenly, Haela stood up.

Startled, Marlin asked, “Madam, where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere. I just want to look.”

Haela looked around the room and then went out to the terrace.

The cold night air made her body shrink instinctively.

She approached the railing and looked down.

The familiar landscape came into view.

For a moment, she remembered the moment she jumped.

At the same time, a sharp pain felt in her chest caused Haela to sink to the floor.

The startled Marlin approached to check on her.

Haela said she was fine and went back inside with her support.

As she was about to lie back on the bed, a large portrait hanging on the wall caught her eye.

It was Haela in a white formal dress and Kersian in a matching wedding suit.

“Why is that hanging on the wall? I hate looking at it, so take it down immediately. No, burn it entirely.”

Haela clenched her fists while keeping her eyes fixed on the portrait.

Her wide-open eyes were bloodshot and red.

“Madam, please calm down. I understand your heart, but if you really do that, people will gossip.”

“I don’t care.”

Haela said, keeping her eyes fixed on the woman in the portrait.

The snow-white wedding dress was incredibly delicate and luxurious.

However, the bride’s expression did not look very bright.

Looking at the portrait brought back old memories she had forgotten.

On her wedding day, she had entered the hall with a swelling heart, only to find a woman seated confidently among the guests, also wearing a snow-white dress.

Even though the bride had entered, people’s attention seemed more focused on her.

The Duke’s knights tried to lead the woman away with a very polite attitude, but she wouldn’t budge, and the knights hesitated to touch her body.

Conscious of the eyes of the guests filling the seats, Haela tried to keep her reason and asked about her. Kersian introduced her in a casual voice.

‘She is the daughter of Count Chaos, her name is Uriel.’

‘If she is from the Chaos family, she is from a vassal family of the Duchy. Why are you leaving her like that when she is ruining the ceremony?’

‘She has a mischievous personality by nature, so it seems she is playing a prank. The ceremony isn’t ruined to this extent. I will scold her later, so I hope you don’t take it too seriously.’

‘A prank?’

Toward her, who was in shock, he added with an indifferent face:

‘Uriel and the people of the Count’s family are like family to me, so I hope you will get along with her as well.’

Haela closed and opened her eyes.

Expectation and excitement had turned into insult. She finished the ceremony receiving looks of ridicule and pity rather than envy.

That day was a great wound, but compared to the things she suffered until just before she died, that was merely the beginning.

Unlike the past when it finished without much trouble, this time the ceremony ended in a mess because she had collapsed.

She remembered Kersian’s eyes looking at her with disgust before she lost consciousness.

He, who had a strong sense of honor and pride, would have been furious that the ceremony was ruined.

Because the timing of her collapse was strange, people would gossip, and since he had to handle the situation, he would be even less pleased.

Since Kersian wouldn’t turn his arrows toward the Uriel he loved, those arrows would return to her.

Thinking of facing him again, it felt like she couldn’t breathe properly.

“I think it would be better to call the doctor after all.”

Marlin was only anxious.

She tried to ring the bell on the table to call someone, but Haela stopped her, making her stomp her feet in frustration.

“Madam, what is wrong?”

“I’m fine, so I don’t need a doctor or anything. Just stay by my side while I think.”

The usually gentle and innocent Haela seemed like a different person now.

Unlike her cold voice, her expression looked like thin ice that was about to break.

Recalling the doctor’s words that there was nothing wrong with her body, Marlin had no choice but to nod.

“Yes. I will do that.”

Hearing the answer, Haela sat on the edge of the bed.

“Father?”

“He would be in the Imperial Palace, wouldn’t he?”

“As long as he is still alive, that’s enough.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s nothing.”

Haela didn’t say anything more after that.

With a blank expression, her gaze was sunken.

The moment she jumped and the memories of the wedding day kept rising in her mind.

She had jumped from a high place, but when she opened her eyes, she had returned to the day she held her ceremony with Kersian.

She thought it was a delusion, but it wasn’t.

It felt like she was dead but also not, and it also felt like she had had a long dream.

It was hard to distinguish which was a dream and which was reality.

Haela looked down.

The logs in the fireplace were burning with a crackling sound, and she could feel the warmth.

From inside, the faint smell of medicine drifted, and through the open window, the night air carrying the scent of spring entered.

All her senses were excessively realistic.

There couldn’t be a dream like this in the world.

Perhaps she was being punished for the crime of driving many people to death.

Because the reality unfolding before her was no different from hell.

The wedding, which was the beginning of all misfortune—since the ceremony had already been held, it meant she was tied to the Duchy.

Everything was repeating from the start.

If the heavens had pitied her, she would have returned to the time before she met him.

‘Because you act so pathetic, aren’t those two acting so boldly?’

‘Do you think I haven’t tried? Don’t speak so easily.’

‘So do you intend to keep living like this?’

‘Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, things don’t work out. I guess living like this is my fate.’

‘Fate is something a person creates.’

Suddenly, she remembered a conversation she had with someone at her father’s funeral.

At that time, she hated that person for saying such hurtful words so casually.

Because he was born superior and arrogant, doing everything his own way, she thought he could speak so easily because he didn’t understand her.

Perhaps because her heart was twisted, she felt only wronged even after hearing those words.

However, thinking about it now, it sounded different.

“Fate is something a person creates?”

Haela muttered blankly.

For the first time, a faint smile appeared on her lips.